The Best of the Simpsons Part One

When I was an uber-nerd, one of my most favorite things in the entire world was when comic books used to crossover. I’d buy them all, whether it was the Avengers meet Alpha Flight, the X-Men battle the Fantastic Four or Power Pack teamed up with Daredevil. I didn’t care one way or the other.

If you’re reading this Blog entry right now and are nodding your head in agreement, my friend Jeff Kuhn have Teamed-Up as they call it and are going for the gimmick thing in dragging readers to our sites. This week we’re starting off with the top ten Simpsons episodes from seasons one through seven. Why? Because choosing ten episodes from seasons one through infinity would’ve taken forever, and if you’re a regular reader of this site, you know that I just don’t have that kind of time.

So, read my list, check out Jeff’s take and then read what his list is all about here http://culturalsoup.blogspot.com//

10. Bart the General (Season 1)
This was the first episode that I can really, really made me laugh. Yes, it is symbolic of the old-school, Bart-centered episodes, but it was really well done. And I remember thinking that it broke a lot of old sitcom rules. For example, when Bart went to an adult he wasn’t talked out of kicking Nelson’s ass, he was encouraged with great enthusiasm and psychoticness from Grandpa and Herman.

Also, when Nelson was tied up he said something to the effect of, “As soon as you untie me, man, I’m just going to beat you up.” On other shows, whenever the bully was about to be bested, he would immediately change his tune. Everyone knows that in the real world of kidom, that sort of stuff never happens.

Lines that made me laugh:
Herman: “The key to Springfield has always been Elm Street. The Greeks knew it, the Carthaginians knew it. Know you do.” (How many shows reference the Carthaginians?)

Bart: “Contrary to what you’ve just seen war is neither glamorous or fun. There are no winners, only losers. There are no good wars, with the following exceptions: the American Revolution, World War II and the Star Wars trilogy.”

Jeff’s take:
This is a pretty good episode, but only because Herman is involved. If my kid was hanging out with Herman, I think I’d check his ass for fingerprints. The one thing I didn’t really like about it was Grandpa being involved. He’s so much better as the crazy guy that says that “family jewels” is said on TV too much, and that there are three too many states.

9. Bart the Lover (Season 3)
The best Bart episodes are always the ones where he’s a bastard. There’s a lot of dirty tricks that he’s pulled over the years, but this one was the dirtiest and the best. As Eddie Haskell once opined, “Nothing’s mean if it’s funny enough.” This episode saw Bart being punished for a yo-yo trick by his teacher, Ms. Krabapple. In order to get her back he cuts out a picture of Gordie Howe and writes a love letter to her.

The letter is a riot, and of course Krabapple falls for it. Bart begins to feel bad for her after seeing her waiting for her date that will never come. He confesses his trick to his parents and instead of making him confess, they all come up with a plan so Krabapple isn’t completely mortified. Again, this sets a sitcom truism (all children must be punished and the “right” thing must be done) on it’s ear. Also, just the randomness of including Gordie Howe. That was awesome.

Lines that made me laugh:
Homer: “Dear Baby, Welcome to Dumpsville. Population: You.”

Woodrow: “Truly, Yours is a butt that won’t quit.”

Jeff’s take:
I like cruelness as much as anyone, but I actually never liked this episode. In my mind, the first two seasons are like the Supreme Court before John Marshall. They were too afraid to really find their voice, and because of that, they didn’t have much real power. They were noticeable, but unimportant.

Find somewhere else someone can compare the Simpsons to the doctrine substantive judicial review.

8. Homie the Clown (Season 6)
The episodes where Homer quits his job and takes on a new job aren’t usually my favorite ones. However, this one absolutely kills me. From Homer trying his best not to think of clown college, to Krusty betting against the Globetrotters, to Fat Tony and his gang. Just a tour de force of comedy.

Then of course is the amount of money that Krusty owes the mob. Also, Millhouse’s birthday with immortal line, “My dad is a big wheel down at the cracker factory.” This episode really drives home the point that repetition is the key, because when I first saw it I remember not liking it that much. But over the course of a couple of years in syndication, it’s been on at least 35,000 times and the more I watched it, the more I grew to love it.

Lines that made me laugh:
Homer: “That’s it. You people have stood in my way long enough. I’m going to clown college!”

Legs: “I’m seeing double here, four Krustys!”

Jeff’s take:
This was my last cut at #10. In fact, if on the other place, my name wasn’t Tibor, it would have been 10. Can you extend patronage to yourself?

The dude wearing the cowboy hat saying “Brook Lyn” after finding out there can only be one regional Krusty is completely hilarious. Also, Homer beating the little Hamburgerler guy makes me laugh thinking about it. Remember…midget violence=larfs!

7. Bart of Darkness (Season 6)
If you’ve ever owned a pool, this episode rings true. The new friends that you will “coincidentally” make during July and August once you open up your pool is astounding. As usual the Simpsons do a terrific job of encapsulating that in one line, uttered by Jimbo (with hundreds of kids behind him), “Uhm … Mrs. Bart, is your pool open yet?” Of course, there’s the scene with the Amish, Nelson causing Bart to fall out of the tree (“Hey Bart, your epidermis is showing!”) followed by an explanation of why it was so funny and Bart’s screen play.

That’s not even the main plot which centers on Ned being considered a mur-diddly-urdler, or the subplots of Lisa becoming popular, Homer trying to figure out how to run a pool, or Bart playing solo Stratego. If the Jimmy Stewart-type guy didn’t clue you in, this was an homage to Alfred Hitchcock’s “Rear Window”.

Lines that made me laugh:
Milhouse: “Nelson, I think he’s really hurt.”
Nelson: “I said ‘Ha, ha’.”

Amish dude: “Tis’ a mighty fine barn English, but tis no pool.”

Kid: “Hello Mrs. Cumberdale.”

Jeff’s take:
This one is clever in it’s parodying “Rear Window,” I would say definitely a top 20 episode of this era.

I had a pool for a few years growing up, transitioning between city life and the suburbs, and this one really hits the nail on the head, including my friend Nick getting a bigger pool and everyone going over to his house. My Mom was fanatical about the pool though, forcing other kids to bring their parents to baby sit. My dad was less strict, with his thinking if you’re dumb enough to drown in a pool four feet deep, you deserve your outcome.

Bonus points to chlorine-induced ocular damage to the kiddies by Homer.

6. I Love Lisa (Season 4)
When I was coming up with this list, I initially thought that this would be favorite episode of all time. I can’t believe that it didn’t even make the top five. This is the first Ralph-centric episode and quite possibly the best. I have no idea how the writers were able to catch lightning in a bottle, but they way that Ralph Wiggum is written is awesome. They really should’ve gotten an Emmy for it.

Ralph is obviously pretty dumb, but in this episode they give him a certain pathos and heart that makes every guy feel his pain. Be honest with yourself, you’ve set your goals high in the woman department and you’ve been shot down … just like our boy Ralph. And from his first days of having a crush on Lisa to getting crushed by Lisa (on national TV, no less) you just feel his hurt.

The scene that always makes me laugh is when he jumps into the wheelchair dressed as FDR and exclaims, “I’ve come here to play George Washington!” Bonus points to the appearance of the KBBL morning DJs (Bill and Marty) playing “Monster Mash” on Valentine’s Day, Rex the childhood drama king, Bart as John Wilkes Booth going on an insane president killing spree, Ralph’s acting and subsequent exclamation from the gang of bullies (“He makes me want to learn about our founding fathers!” “To the library!”), this was a well-written, well-acted episode. And major bonus points for being the first sitcom based around President’s Day.

Lines that made me laugh:
So many good lines ...

Homer: “Six simple words: I’m not gay, but I’m learn.”

Miss Hoover: “Bart, do you want to play John Wilkes Booth or do you want to act like a maniac?”

Rex: “I will not sit down! Someone’s gotten to you, you deceitful cow!”

Ralph: “My cat’s breath smells like cat food.”

Ralph: “So ... do you like ... stuff?”

Song: “We are the mediocre presidents. You won’t find our faces on dollars or on cents.
There’s Taylor, there’s Tyler, there’s Fillmore and there’s Hayes.
There’s William Henry Harrison, “I died in thirty days!”
We are the adequate, forgettable, occasionally regrettable caretaker Presidents of the USA!”

Jeff’s take:
There is a bar around here that has the Monster Mash on the juke box, and I love playing it when it’s a crowded Saturday night. If WTF!?!? had a face, it would be at Charlie O’s when the Monster Mash is played.

Hey Byron, I choo-choo-choose you!

And there’s a picture of a train!

Remember, read Jeff’s stuff too at: http://culturalsoup.blogspot.com/

The Cult of No Personality

No. This isn’t about Corey Glover and the boys of Living Colour—BTW, one of the most underrated bands of the last 20 years. This is about getting fame. In my strip this week, Layne brings up Paris Hilton and how she’s known world wide for virtually nothing. The only thing that she’s know for, her looks and her money, weren’t even worked for. She was born with both.

This brings us to the following question, is it easier to be famous now? I think that the answer has to be yes. Hilton has zero talent, except for what she did to her former boyfriend one night. I have to admit, she looks to be really proficient at that. But I don’t think that skill translates well into fame or fortune.

You want to see the strip that spawned this inner monologue? Check it out here:
www.room19comics.com

Hilton was born with a silver spoon up her nose and she has worked that into a semi-hit television reality series, the desire of a lot of men and her style is imitated by some women. But how did she do it? That’s the billion dollar question. The first time I remember hearing about the Hilton sisters was about five years ago. All I heard was that Paris and her equally vapid sister Nicky would go out every night, get completely trashed and say stupid things. Aside from finding them attractive, in that slutty sort of way, I didn’t give them too much attention, and thought that they would disappear into a mountain of cocaine and down a river of Red Bull and vodka.

But I underestimated the power of the Hilton. After awhile, they began to appear every where: Paris with that cocked head look and stoner smile, Nicky with those bat-shit crazy eyes. Then things pushed forward even more, they were guest starring on TV shows. First as kitschy walk-ons and then on talk shows begging for some kind of “edge”. Then Paris got her own series, then she was in a few movies, then she was supposed to record a CD (which hasn’t seen the light of day). How could one person with no talent have so many irons in the fire?

I mean, it can’t be all the work of her PR person can it? If so, whatever that person is being paid, it’s not enough. While it’s no secret that Americans like their celebrities stupid and slutty, Hilton has taken it to a new extreme. She is so dumb and so slutty that she’s almost a cartoon of herself (and I think there may have been talk of a Hilton sisters cartoon at one point), but no one seems to give a shit.

People still take her picture, still ask her questions (which are never answered intelligently) still appears on the cover of a truck-load of magazines (yet is never completely nude). Maybe we’re the idiots here. It’s obvious that Hilton is laughing all the way to the bank, she doesn’t even hide that smug smile. Maybe she found some Rosetta Stone that unlocks the key to being well-known without doing any work. I don’t know.

I guess the only thing you can do is congratulate her, right? Nah. I’d still rather be me than her.

Speaking of me, I finished my Web Design courses on Monday night. Completely and totally done. D-O-N-E. I can’t even begin to tell you how much of a relief that this is. It was about 48 weeks, and I have to say, I worked hard for that year. I was a little sad to leave, because I did enjoy learning a new skill, but at the same time, I’m not going to miss the homework.

If you want to see my final project, check it out here:

www.boston-braves.com/carreonphoto/carreonphoto

It’s supposed to be an updated version of this site:

www.carreonphotography.com

I think that I did a decent job. Now all I have to do is update my current site and find some new customers. That should be happening in the next couple of weeks or so.

Speaking of the next few weeks, next week there will be no new strip. I am going to be in Chicago for the entire week, so I won’t have time to upload anything. Sorry about that one, kiddies. Also, on Friday, come back to this site as we will be doing something pretty cool. I don’t want to tell you exactly what it is, but I think that you’re going to like it.

When I Get to the Bottom I Go Back to the Top of the Slide

You should probably know that lyric, it’s the first one from the Beatles’ “Helter Skelter”, which not so coincidentally was also the title of Charles Manson’s race war. Since I have Manson on the brain these days—I’m not going to start a stable full of blood thirsty flowerchildren in the middle of the desert, but I have been rereading Ed Sanders’ excellent book, “The Family”—and I came up with an idea for the old strip.

It sort of works on two levels, for me at least, because other than reading this book, the overall crux of the strip is semibiographical. Turns out that my mom went to high school (St. Mary’s High in Lawrence, MA) with Linda Kasabian. If you’ve seen either one of the “Helter Skelter” TV movies or read the book, you’ll know that Kasabian was a member of the family who went along during the Tate murders.

If you can believe her testimony, she was too freaked out to actually kill anyone and when the massacre started, she was in a ball crying. After the incident, she took her kid and went back to New England where she lived for a few months until the California DA offered her a deal to testify against her former friends. She did, and basically got off scott-free.

That’s the background of this week’s strip, which you can check out for yourself at:
www.room19comics.com

When I was in high school and first saw the movie, I was totally creeped out and obsessed about the whole trial. Not so much the murder part of it, the whole cult of personality that Manson was able to create for himself that got people to actually believe that he was both Jesus Christ and Satan. Why would anyone believe this? Why would they kill for him? How could you think that the Beatles were talking to you through a record? Just generally, what the fuck?

Then my mom told me about how she knew of Kasabian and it brought on even more questions: what was she like, was she a total freak, how did she get out to California, did you ever hang out with her? Tons of them. And if Kasabian could be coerced into going out there and be part of some crazy death cult, what stopped my mother (or any of her friends) from doing that?

The only thing she had to tell me was, “I don’t know. She was kind of weird.” Nothing else. That was more frustrating than not knowing anything. I thought, here my mother was a person who knew someone who was part of the most famous trial of the century (OJ hadn’t made the run for the border yet) and no first-hand knowledge could be passed. It drove me nuts and sort of pissed me off.

Thinking about it over these last few years, it has occurred to me that why would my mom know Linda Kasabian, except in passing? Kasabian was obviously whacked out to begin with and from all accounts, my mom and her friends seemed fairly normal. Why would a person who was normal hang out with an out-and-out freak? I certainly didn’t when I was in school and I made a point to stay the hell away from them. Wouldn’t my mom do the same thing?

And how was she to know that Linda Kasabian would be famous, or in the very least infamous? Think of all the weirdos you know, chances are pretty good that none of them are going to achieve any type of fame or infamy. If they weren’t cool people would you spend time with these people in the hopes that they do something fucked up so you could get some modicum of popularity by simply knowing the person?

I’ve written about this phenomenon before, the friends of the famous, who are known because they happen to hang around with someone famous. There is something really detestable about these leeches and hangers on who have made their name without talent or substance simply because they are friends with a talented person. And as bad as Jessica Simpson’s kindergarten teacher showing up on VH1 to talk about how driven Jessica was when she was five, it is ultimately even more despicable to be a friend of a mass murder who is using the crime to further his/her fame.

I guess, in the long run, I’m glad that my mom didn’t know Kasabian well. Things probably would’ve been different for me if my mom chose the path that her classmate chose. However, in this particular comic strip, Eddie doesn’t have a chance to reflect on this introspection and, like most of do when faced with a disappointment, just blurts out what’s on his mind.

Another thing that I’m glad about this strip is that Eddie gets to deliver the dis to Kurt instead of the other way around. I was looking through a bunch of the older strips and it’s usually Kurt one-upping Ed. I don’t want to turn Eddie into a sad-sack loser, every once in a while he has to have something bright to say, otherwise it’s the same old stuff week after week. And that gets boring.

Speaking of boring, I didn’t do a heck of a lot this weekend, except eat. Mom and dad came over on Friday night to watch the wedding video, they hadn’t seen it yet, and we went to Vinny T’s. Not a bad place to eat, for a chain restaurant. I had the pork chops and vinegar peppers. Truthfully, Aly’s was better as Vinny T’s didn’t use real vinegar peppers. They just roasted some red peppers and chucked them on the pork.

Saturday I spent most of the day doing homework, which absolutely sucked because it was gorgeous outside. But for three and a half hours, I was stuck in front of my PC working on my final project. Can you believe that my last class is next Monday? It seems like just yesterday I was going in the office to meet with Kurt Carl about possibly going there. Even though it’s a certificate program, I’ve learned a ton. Check back here next week for my final web site, it’s pretty decent.

Saturday night, Lauren and Bob came over and we went to Abe and Louie’s for an awesome steak dinner. It was a bit pricey, but well worth it. My filet mignon tasted tremendous, as did the clam chowder and the apple pie with ice cream I had for dessert. After that, they came over to our place and we just hung out.

Sunday was more homework and I bought a new pair of running shoes. I guess that I’m getting into this running thing a bit more seriously now. My knees have been killing me since I started running outside and on the treadmill. Hopefully these new kicks will stop that from happening.

Bear-ly Legal

Like the title? That should get me a couple of hits from the illiterate pedophile crowd who surf Google for their smut. But as another famous bear would say, “Wocka, wocka, wocka!”

Today’s strip is a bit of a departure for Room 19 Comics. Normally, I try to keep it somewhat grounded in “real life”, but I decided to see how the absurd would work. About the only thing that has any basis in reality is that I remember that this skit killed my friend Ryan and me when we were younger. I think we must’ve quoted this skit for an entire summer. And the funny thing was, it wasn’t a front of the show skit. If I remember correctly, this was one of the latter skits. And if you know your Saturday Night Live history, that’s the graveyard shift where they put the crap.

However, it was during the Hartman-Carvey run of the late 80s, early 90s when SNL was appointment TV again, so maybe being at the end of those shows isn’t as bad as being at the end of this cast’s shows.

Saturday Night Live? Bears? Absurdist comedy? You had me at the title, check it out here: www.room19comics.com

The main point of this strip is that Eddie gets attacked by a bear. I think that’s pretty damn funny. There are a couple of little things to look for in this strip: Eddie is wearing a Chicago Cubs shirt, check out the bear’s nose in the first panel and the look of confusion in his eyes in the second panel. Also, check out the Jimmy Fallon slam. That guy just sucks, BTW.

In the second panel, I originally had Kurt agreeing with Eddie that it sounded like a funny concept for a skit, but right before I scanned the drawing, I decided to change it to him thinking that it sucked. After he sees his buddy get mauled, he thought it was funny. I think that this is a universal reaction that we’d all have to seeing our friend fight a bear.

Other than that, that’s pretty much it. There isn’t a lot of complicated layers in this week’s strip (not that there usually is) but this week’s is pretty regular. I will say this, I enjoyed drawing the bear … aside from dogs, bears are my favorite animal and I’ve wanted to do a bear strip since I saw “Grizzly Man” a few weeks ago. Matching this desire with the SNL skit, I think that it worked out pretty well.

I sold my car yesterday. I’m torn about it because on the one hand, I got a pretty good deal and we need the cash, but on the other hand it was the first car that I bought myself and I’ve done my best to take care of it properly. A lot of blood, sweat and money has gone into my ride and now I’m selling it. I think that I felt this way after I sold the Prelude, and I know that I’ll get over it.

My car had been languishing on Craig’s List for about three months before I got a great idea last Wednesday. I decided to scrap the first paragraph and talk like a pirate. Here’s what I wrote:

“Avast ye, mateys. This vessel be originally priced at $7,500, it is now slashed by $1,000! Ye landlubbers will love the terrific condition of the automobile, the reason why I be selling is that me wench can't drive stick and we can only afford the pieces of eight for one automobile in Brookline. Please take this off my hooks ... I'm practically begging you.

Ok. I needed to get a little creative as this has been sitting on Craig's List for a few weeks and it's time to shove off. In all seriousness, this is a terrific car and has had zero problems. It'd be perfect for the first time driver, a college student or practically anyone. And if you buy it, I promise not to use my pirate voice.”

Within 24 hours, I got five serious offers. Incredible. If I had known about this earlier, I would’ve done everything in a pirate voice: looked for a job, tried to get a better loan for the house, dated. I think that I could’ve really made quite a healthy living off this.

Anyway, the guy who bought the car is going to turn around and sell it to a kid for a couple hundred dollars more that what I sold to him for. I guess his job is to troll Craig’s List and find cars for people. I can’t tell whether that’s a good gig or not. Seems like a lot of work for not a lot of money, but if you’re motivated and good at keep your own schedule, then I bet you could do real well.

Class is almost over. I have two weeks and then I’m done. I can’t even begin to tell you how glad I am about this. I have zero motivation and I just want to get this project done. After I come from Chicago, I’m going to start advertising my services again for a freelance web designer. Maybe I’ll use the old pirate voice.

Two cool things happened this weekend, one we went up to Archie and Jenn’s place this weekend with Reddish. Just a real good time, as we got to hang out with the Kane family. They live in a pretty nice place 20 miles north west of Concord, so it’s definitely in the sticks. But they seem to have a real happy life without the trappings of living in the big city. There are times when I think that would be an awesome way to go, but there is a part of me that might miss being able to walk out the door, walk three blocks and buy a book. It’s all a trade-off, I guess.

Their kids are really cool too. Travis and Kelsey are three and a year, respectively, and are probably some of the most well-behaved kids I’ve ever seen. Knowing Archie, he’s probably scared them into being good. Actually, Arch seems like a pretty good dad quite a long way from the days in our dorm room where him and I would play drinking solitaire with a half a bottle of Wild Turkey while listening to Jane’s Addiction.

I can’t remember what the second cool thing was, but if I remember, I’ll tell you about it on Friday.

Can A Book Be Pop Culture?

Note: if you’re hear for the previous entry, roll past this one … and then come back to read it.

For this entry, yes it can be. Every few months I try to post a few book reviews of things that I’ve read since my last book reviews. This edition’s is a bit more eclectic than the last one as there really is no common thread between the three books. Maybe there is, I guess you could say that history is the common thread, but that sort of ruins my point, so forget I ever said that.


The first book on this tour was one that I picked up while in San Antonio. You might think that it would be a book about the Old West or injuns. Well, you’d be wrong. It’s called, “Michelangelo and the Pope’s Ceiling” by Ross King. Across from the hotel I was staying at was a really cool exhibit on the Vatican. It had a bunch of the old treasures, Popeware and other relics. This book was in the gift shop.

I have to say, I was a little hesitant about reading it because I bought it on a whim as a memento of the exhibition, but overall it was a more than decent book. It was about exactly what the title suggests, Michelangelo and Pope Julius II. To put it simply, Julius was a dick, as was Michelangelo. This wasn’t very surprising as both of them were at the tops in their fields and got there by doing things their way.

Michelangelo didn’t really feel like doing the Sistine Chapel, he’d rather have sculpted Julius’ tomb—which he thought would cement his legacy and Julius was constantly telling him what to paint … and more importantly, how to paint it. It would’ve been a pretty quick book if that’s what the entire thing was about, good thing that King decided to have equal parts Michelangelo and equal parts Julius.

Julius was a bad motherfucker and during his day, Popes weren’t the docile peace-keepers that they are now. They were corrupt, many of them had a ton of children and would bribe and extort, and were almost warrior kings. Julius was no exception, there were a couple of instances during the painting of the ceiling where Julius led the Holy Roman army against the French and kicked their asses. Of course, he needed the help of the Swiss (which screwed him over a couple of times), the English and the Spanish.

For some reasons, Julius kept the Swiss around and later had Michelangelo design their uniforms. Look at these freaking things:


I guess Julius got his revenge.

BTW, when the ceiling was unveiled it was a huge hit … everyone thought it was awesome. And here’s another thing, Michelangelo did not paint the entire thing by himself, he had a bunch of apprentices that helped him, he was paid very well for the time (he paid his helpers shit) and they did not paint on their backs. Anyone who tells you that is retarded.

This next book was something along the lines of reading about the time you lost your virginity: it was awkward, scary, really messy and you’d rather not see any evidence of it again. The book is called “The Bad Guys Won” and was written by Jeff Pearlman.


As you may remember, Pearlman is the Sports Illustrated writer who made John Rocker a household name back in the late 90s. It was him who wrote the story about Rocker and the wacky things he said about gays, New York City, etc. Pearlman isn’t a one-trick pony though and is actually a pretty good writer, though in this book he went way overboard in the overwriting department and forced a lot of “cute” similes. It would’ve been a much stronger book if he cut down on them and just wrote it straight.

As you can tell by the book cover, this book is about the New York Mets … in particular the 1986 New York Mets. You might remember them, they were a team that beat some other team from the northeast in a silly little tournament called the World Series. I can’t remember the whole course of events, but if you go here you will:

RBI Madness

The above is sort of one of those things that you watch after you’ve seen “Faith Rewarded” and the entire 11-disc 2004 Red Sox MLB playoffs.

Despite the obvious “pinnacle” of the book, it was a decent read. As much as I hate that the Mets broke my Sox cherry, it was going to be done by one team sooner or later, I have to admit that they seem like a pretty fun group. Pearlman does an excellent job of getting a bunch of the stories from that year and pulling no punches. There is one story about shortstop Rafael Santana that is really hilarious, I’m not going to spoil it, but you’ll never look at the guy the same way again.

Another thing that I liked about it is that Pearlman didn’t just interview the stars like Gooden, Strawberry, Hernandez and Carter. He talked to just about everyone including guys like backup catcher Ed Hearn, reliever Doug Sisk and supersub Kevin Mitchell. Another great part of the book is the way that it traces the end of the supposed dynasty and the mistakes that the Mets brass made.

Whether you like the Mets or not, and I certainly am not a big fan of them, this is a terrific book, made especially more interesting for me as it was the year that I really started to follow baseball and collect baseball cards. That’s the one thing that constantly ran through my head as I was reading this book, an off-color story would be told about someone, I’d recall their 1986 Topps baseball card and think, “I wonder if Lenny Dykstra knew that he would lose $20,000 on a poker game when this picture was being taken?”

Basically, I’ve always viewed my baseball card collection as a representation of my innocence. When I was younger, I thought that these guys were gods (maybe not Marc Sullivan), but it turns out that they were just regular, flawed human beings, just like everyone else. Does that discolor my view of that time? No. That’s just the way I was back then and I’m sure my son will be the same way when he gets into cards. To add a point, it’s not like after reading this book my eyes were suddenly open as to the debauchery that occurs in major league clubhouses, I knew that … this only reminded me of when I didn’t.

Did you know that there was a huge influenza pandemic in 1918? I had no idea until I read “The Great Influenza” by John Barry. No, it’s not Jon Barry the journeyman basketball player, it’s another dude.

This was a well-researched book, let me say that straight up. Apparently it took Barry seven years to write this thing and it completely shows. He obviously took his time and scoured every corner of this country for any mention of this pandemic in any newspaper, journal or magazine. It must’ve have been easy.

That’s not to say that I loved it. I liked it, I’m glad I read it, but probably won’t read it again. The reason? The way I look at it, this book was broken up into three distinct parts: the doctors/researchers/medical institutions, the politicians and the biology of the disease.

The biology was the least amount of the three and I basically skipped over that part. I’ve never been a big science guy and the parts of science that I liked did not have to do with biology. I found it to be a tremendous bore.

Of the other two parts, I found the politician reaction to the disease to be the most fascinating. Since we were in the midst of World War I, any bad news was considered criminal. This included newspapers writing about the disease and how it’s wiping out scores of military personnel and moving into the big cities and destroying them too. Thus, by the time the word got out it was almost too late.

Because of this shroud against “anti-Americanism” people were more scared and confused than if the government just gave them the new straight. The death toll rose so high in cities such as Philadelphia (where their city government’s workings made Tammany Hall look like Romper Room), Boston, New York that there was literally no place to bury the dead. Much like when the plague slammed the Middle Ages, there were death carts being pulled through the cities stacked high with bodies.

Even President Woodrow Wilson was affected by the disease, which in turn impacted his four nations (England, France, Italy and the US) meeting at the end of World War I. He was so weak from influenza that he gave into the French delegate’s wishes of making Germany completely and totally culpable for WWI. This plunged Germany into a gigantic tailspin of depression that was only rescued by the Nazi party. If Wilson had been more healthy, maybe he wouldn’t have given into the wishes of the French of things would’ve been different.

The parts about the doctors and researchers, while interesting and essential, tended to drag a bit. Maybe it’s because I was able to relate to the “normal” folks who were terrified and got the disease and was fascinated by the what ifs of the end of the war, but I was not as interested in the medical aspects.

That’s not to say that it entirely sucked, there were a bunch of interesting anecdotes and these men were heroes.

Running on Empty … I Ran … Running with the Devil … Run’s House

There are a million songs with the word “run” in them and I picked a few that happened to run through my brain. As many of you long-time readers know, Wednesdays are usually reserved for me to crab about my strip, point out what I think is funny or explain why a joke didn’t work. This week, we’re going to change things up a bit, this week, we’re going to lead off with a pretty special event that occurred on Monday: my wife, Alyson Magrane, completed her first Boston Marathon in a little over five hours, 5:14 to be exact.

You won’t find a more proud person than me, it’s hard for me to even begin to describe the amount of pride that I feel towards her, she’s my hero. Overdramatic? I don’t care, the odds that she, and all runners actually, have to overcome to finish the race are pretty large. I never knew how much a person had to shuffle around their life in order to run. Saturdays became all about the long runs, which meant that Friday night she was in bed early as well as Saturday night. And it wasn’t just a one-day thing, Sunday she was hurting but she got right back to her routine on Monday.

And since we live in Boston, it’s not exactly San Diego, which meant that a majority of her runs came in the outside … in January and February … in complete darkness. Think that it sucks to train in San Diego? How about wearing eight layers of clothes and hoping that your sweat doesn’t freeze to your face or that some jerk that’s going too fast in his Miata doesn’t hit some black ice and takes you at the kneecaps.

Unlike training for a fall marathon, like the Marine Corps in Washington or New York, you have no idea what you’re going to get when it comes to marathon day in April. It could be hot as August, cold as February, rainy as October, windy as March … you have no clue. Luckily, she had perfect weather yesterday.

Did she want to quit? Of course she did, putting plans on the backburner or not being able to have a glass of wine or some sort of fattening food while everyone else (including her husband) isn’t easy. And it’s not easy to leave a warm home and run by yourself through the streets of Brighton and Allston while your husband is reading the paper and watching football. But she did it. And for that, she has all my respect. When she first saw me yesterday in Wellesley (about mile 16), with tears in her eyes telling me how much she hurt, it was all I could do to pick her up in my arms and carry her back to our house. But she persevered and made it to the end. I’ll never forget that.

So here’s to you number 21264, take a few days off and no matter what happens, you can always say that you’re a marathoner.

Ok. Now for the real reason that you’re here; comics. Poorly drawn, crudely written web comics. This week’s episode revolves around blissful ignorance and a look into the future. In the first panel, Eddie talks about going home and talking to his older brother. Being a good guy, his older brother gives him some words of wisdom that both he and Kurt shoot down.

Want to check it out: www.room19comics.com

The same thing happened to me, and since I didn’t have an older brother it came from my friend Brownie’s brother, Greg. While we were still in school, Greg must’ve been in a melancholy mood and started going on about women and how lucky we were to be in college. He basically said, there will never be another time in your life that you’re literally going to be surrounded by girls that are all in the same social, class, intelligence and age spheres than you are in right now. In the real world, there are going to be chicks from everywhere and you actually have to work hard to make conversation and ultimately get laid.

In college he said, more than half of the battle is won … you have such a large pooled of shared experiences, it should be a piece of cake to talk to a woman and get some rap going. As the rap extends, you move the conversation elsewhere and there you go. In a bar or some other meeting place you have to set up the parameters of the conversation: is she your age, does she make way more or way less than you, is she from around here, etc. This is time consuming and if it takes too long and proves fruitless, you’re going home alone. In college you can skip that part.

Of course, we ignored him and after a couple of months outside of school and in the bar scene, he proved to be 100% right. BTW, the line that Eddie says in the last panel is a direct ripoff of Ralph Wiggum’s quote when he’s trying to win over Lisa Simpson. Now that guy was a lothario.

The Third and Final Part of What I Watch

For the true-believers of 19 Thoughts, Friday just couldn’t get here quick enough, eh? The last part of What I Watch (WIW to the hep cats) is about to begin. Everyone have your scorecards and TV Guides? Good. Let’s, as a priest I used to know was fond of saying, procerd.

I don’t watch much of anything on Tuesday. Aly’s got me into “American Idol”, but I’m usually flicking between that and the Red Sox and a bunch of time, I’m reading or doing other stuff. There’s not a lot to like about AI: it’s full of product placement, it rewards the hopelessly talentless, it has made Ryan Seacrest and the completely unsoulful Randy Jackson stars (Jackson was the bassist in JOURNEY for Christ’s Sakes and he talks like an extra from the UPN … Seacrest is a modern day Dick Clark, except more vanilla), has brought Paul Abdul back into our living rooms and completely exploits and rips off the “talent” it whores out every night.

That being said, it’s like watching a train wreck. I know that this analogy is completely clichéd, but it’s true. Every week these people totally embarrass themselves and the only person who tells them they suck, Simon (who is a class-A prick) gets booed. It’s a microcosm of America: people get rewarded for sucking and when they are told they stink, the person who tells them that gets heckled and is labeled as the “bad guy”. I don’t know, this culture we’re in loves to coddle its crap, from its entertainers to its president. I think that’s a huge problem that we’re facing and somewhere along the line we just lost our way.

Ok. I’m off my soapbox.

So I sort of watch that, which means I sort of watch it on Wednesday nights too. After I take a shower to wash the slime of AI off, (and I have to remind myself to watch the show ironically), I settle in for a nice night of “South Park”. In the early part of this century, I thought that SP had completely lost their fast ball and was going to be this century’s version of “Ren and Stimpy”, brilliant in its originality, but ultimately a flame out.

I was just sick of the over saturation of the brand (and I fell for it when it first came out) and I thought the focus was on the merchandising rather than the writing. Then after a year or so of railing against the Comedy Central machine (and especially creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker), I started to watch it again after my buddy Brad Parker told me that it had gotten better. I’m glad I did because for the past few years, it has rebounded quite nicely. We’re in the midst of the newest season and I can honestly say that now that “Arrested Development” is off the air, there is no better show that constantly satirizes American culture like South Park does.

And not only does the show nail the foibles of modern life, but it gets it right in such a way that it genuinely makes you reflect on what’s going on in this oddly shaped country. The other good thing is that both Parker and Stone are playing with F-You money, so they rip everything the same. From Scientology to Christianity to Comedy Central, it’s rip fucking city. I like that. Equal opportunity offenders.

We need that and you know why? Because of shows like “American Idol”. We need people to say, “You know what? You suck and here’s why” and not just have a bunch of whiny complaints, but some real pointed barbs that make us think that we can do better that a C+ is not a good grade, that just because you can stretch a note out like Reed Richards, it does not make you Aretha Franklin. Yes, mindless entertainment does have it’s purpose, but it doesn’t have to crawl into every single show, movie, story and song.

Yes, there are a lot of idiots in this place, don’t pander to them. Focus on the intelligencia and hope that the morons can keep up. Is that too damn hard to do? Fuck, how did I get on this soap box again?

Speaking of morons, my Thursday night begins with as it has since 2000, with “Survivor”. Quite frankly, this seasons sucks (this has to be a record for the most times I’ve used the word “sucks” and I should probably thinking of buying a Thesaurus) and even after 10 weeks, I’m not sure if I can tell you all of the castaways’ names. I can give you a general description of them:

- Old crazy Hawaiian guy
- Old guy with the immunity idol
- Crazy young chick
- Chick with big cans and the Sox hat
- Older chick who’s the immunity idol dude’s side kick
- Quiet, big black woman
- Bat-shit insane guy
- Jeff Probst

I think that’s it, but to be honest with you I think I’m missing a pretty boy in there. In any event, these dudes are not sticking with me. Last week I watched the first ten minutes and the last ten minutes. The rest of the time I was channel surfing or getting into an argument with my lovely wife (which was quickly resolved).

The problem isn’t the game itself, it constantly changes and updates itself to be tougher and more unpredictable than the previous season, it’s just the cast. After ten seasons (I think) we’ve had about 150 different cast members who do the same exact thing year after year after year. If you don’t have a person who’s a true original, despite being a total scumbag Johnny Fairplay was brilliant, than the show is not going to work. And it doesn’t matter if that person is a “good” guy or a “bad” guy.

Charisma is the oil in this show’s engine and they are in bad need of an oil change.

The last two shows are my favorite hour of television each week. First we start off with “My Name is Earl” starring Jason Lee. It’s like a mini-morality each week without being totally preachy. And although the running theme of the show is karma, the overall “Golden Rule” of just being a good person is universal.

The thing is, this is a show that can be a one-trick pony: Earl has to right a wrong, he does it, hilarity ensues. Yet it’s not. Each week the show manages to stay different and with Randy and Crabman in the scenes, you know that it’s going to be funny. Jamie Pressley is a chick I can’t figure out though, I mean she’s legitimately hot, but there is something to her that doesn’t make her a complete knock out. I can’t figure out what it is, though someone once said she looked like a lizard, but I’m not sure. She has a very weird dynamic to her.

After Earl, it’s “The Office”. I love this show. Absolutely love it, and Aly does too which is weird because both of our senses of humor don’t always jibe. I’ve never gotten into the British version of the show, but I hear it’s just as hilarious. In this case, I think it’s a good thing that I didn’t go into the show with research because I’d be forever comparing it with the original.

What makes this show so great? Let’s start off with the casting, Steve Carell is perfect as Mike, the incompetent office manager of Dunder Mifflin. He brings enough edge to the guy that just when you think that he’s the most detestable human being on the planet, he does something human to make you think, “Hey, he’s not so bad.” Just a top-notch job.

Full disclosure right now, I am using the names of the characters because I don’t feel like looking up their real names (I know, a C+ is not a good grade, but I’m fucking starving).

Jim and Pam are among the best things on the show, but it could also sink the show. They play the pseudo office couple that you just hope gets together and live happily ever after. The one problem is Pam is engaged, yet it’s obvious that she is not happy with this situation and likes Jim. I am begging the writers of the show, literally begging them not to do a Ross/Rachel, Sam/Diane, Wilber/Mr. Ed thing and have them fuck or get married or whatever. It will destroy the show. Just kill it. Don’t do it. I have a feeling that they’re smart enough not to do it, but when the networks start making demands, they might have to.

The background characters are pretty awesome too. Just a tremendous ensemble show that hasn’t been seen since the heyday of “Newsradio”. Hopefully NBC won’t fuck around with this.

Listen Homeboys Don’t Mean to Bust Your Bubble

"But girlies of the world ain’t nothin’ but trouble.
So the next time a girl gives you some play,
Just remember my rhyme and stay the hell away."

Thanks to DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince for the inspiration for this Blog title. There will be no thanks to Ice Cream Tee who provided the B-side “Guys Ain’t Nothin’ But Trouble” on side-B of the seminal DJJ and TFP album, “Rock Tha House”. She was a sucker MC who sucked.

If Will Smith never married Jada Pinkett and if this rhyme was juxtaposed with some of his notorious scenes from “Six Degrees of Separation” (which was actually a really good movie), Big Willy Style could take on a whole new meaning. But enough about him, let’s talk about the subject that brings us together on this beautiful April day, Room 19 Comics.

This week’s strip brings to light one of the best day of the year, Major League Baseball’s Opening Day. Gone are the threats of snow, the cold and the long dreary nights of nothing to watch at 7:05. Baseball is back, and when your team is a bonafide contender like the Sox are, then all is right with the world.

Want to check it out, click here: www.room19comics.com

Much like Eddie, I too have a ritual that I perform before every season opener. It’s called Hot Dog Day, and it’s basically what it sounds. I spend the entire day before OD reading the Globe Baseball Preview, the Sports Illustrated preview, I boil up three Fenway Franks, slather on some Goulden’s mustard, get a bag of chips and wash them all down with a couple of beers. I usually eat the food while watching the premiere of Sunday Night Baseball on ESPN. I never let anything get in the way of this day, some times friends ask me to go to a bar to watch the game, but I never waver.

Kind of geeky? Definitely. But, that’s the way I am about baseball, especially the beginning of the season where the anticipation is often more fun than the season itself. It’s not just the games (which admittedly is a huge portion), but it’s all about what new parks are you going to see this year, where are you going for your vacation, it’s just the whole summer vibe. That’s why people (especially in the Northeast) look forward to baseball and Opening Day.

Like I was beginning to say, Eddie has entire day mapped out. He’s got his dogs, his brews and a seat in front of the tube. All of a sudden the phone rings and it’s a woman (nine times out of ten, I have found this to be true) and she chews his ear off for the entire game. An exaggeration, most definitely, but it has happened before … we’ve all lived it.

The few things that I like about this strip are: technically it’s a much better strip than the first few ones that I did. Look at the spacing between the panels and the straight, dark lines separating them. It’s a small, nit-picky thing, but shitty fundamentals can ruin the strip. If anything, this has come a long way since the beginning.

I am really partial to the second panel. Originally I was going to have Kurt yell out that Eddie has a phone call, but I feel that this works much better. It gives it a more comic-y type feel, especially with the word “Ring” leaving the panel. I also like the banal conversation in the background of Ed. He looks nervous in the third panel (I think that he knows where this is headed) and by the fourth looks completely worn out and disappointed.

Is this strip sexist? Yeah. It probably is, but I think that it’s still pretty funny and the art is some of the best that I’ve done in a while.

Aside from this week’s strip, it’s been pretty boring around Casa Magrane, though it’s going to get busy in a hurry. Aly has the marathon on Monday, and you have no idea about how proud of her I am. I can’t believe that someone I am so close with is going to do this. And I know that 20,000 plus run this thing each year, but it’s a completely different experience when someone you live with is doing it.

Hell, Nick and Debbie have done probably about 20 marathons combined, quick aside – if you’re in Copley or East Boston look for this billboard:



That’s Nick proposing to Debbie last year at the end of the marathon. Adidas has used it for their advertisements promoting the race this year. To continue with my point, those two have done it tons of times and I knew how much work it took, but I didn’t really know. Aly has opened my eyes to the amount of work and preparation, it’s not just the running either, that it takes to do this thing. Getting up early, going to bed early, eating correctly, busted up feet and ankles, the ever present smell of Icy-Hot and Tiger Balm, the mountains of sweaty and smelly clothes … there’s a lot of stuff here that you don’t think about.

And Aly has gone through it all. I am more proud of her than I could even imagine. I can’t wait to see her on Monday at the finish line. It’s going to be awesome.

BTW, do you think in some Scandinavian countries, the term “Finish Line” is changed? Norwegian Line in Norway, Sweedish Line in Sweeden, German Line in Denmark (the Dutch are pussies). Ok, bad Seinfeld-era joke.

In addition to the marathon; I’ve got a huge project in school that I’m finishing up, a freelance web site job, thoughts about completely redoing the Room 19 Comics site, regular work and the comic strip. It’s a lot. But it’s nothing compared to running 26.2 miles. I just have to remember that.

A Belated Part Two of What I Watch

So, the last time we were talking about TV, I was writing about what I watched on Sunday night. There were a few shows that I failed to mention.

One is “King of the Hill”, which has been renewed for its 11th season. That ties the show with “Married … With Children” as the second longest running program on FOX. That blows me away, mainly because I thought when it was first introduced FOX was just hoping to catch lightning in a bottle by getting the guy who wrote “Bevis and Butthead” to do a show for them.

And when I watched the first episode, I thought it was country-fried version of Anderson, the slow-witted neighbor that B and B used to torment. Turns out I was completely wrong. You don’t see the kind of sustained character growth that occurs in KOTH in many sitcoms, much less cartoon ones, but this show has it in spades. And the good thing about it is, it’s not cheesy character growth either.

For example, in “The Simpsons” one can argue that Homer has actually devolved over the years instead of evolving. Not so with the KOTH characters, they have done something that is extremely difficult to quantify, but it’s there. Namely they’ve changed without changing. What I mean by that is that the characters are recognizable from the first season to the tenth, but they aren’t stagnant.

One example is Bobby. From the first couple of seasons he was a fat, lazy kid with no real motivation. Now he is still fat and sort of lazy, but he has a motivation. He sort of found himself and his calling in life. I know that it sounds really dopey to be waxing philosophical about a show such as this, but I really feel that it is the subtleties and nuances of this program that makes it special and has kept it going for more than a decade.

And another thing about this show is that even though it is set in a boring, Walmartesque town that could be anywhere in the Red States, all of the problems and plots are handled with a certain amount of gravity that while it doesn’t take itself too seriously, doesn’t short change the audience either. The writers care about these characters and in turn, the audience does too.

I just started watching this other show, which is why I didn’t really talk about it in the previous entry. The show is called “Big Love” and it’s on after “The Sopranos” on HBO. Aly was the one that got me into this program and for awhile I wasn’t really liking it. There are too many characters, too many over-the-top plots, too much crap going on and Bill Paxton’s naked ass.

If you haven’t seen it, it’s basically about a dude with three wives living in Utah. One of his father-in-laws is the head of a polygamous Mormon cult (that HBO is very careful to say aren’t typical Mormons) that hides in the Utah desert, his wives constantly bicker with each other over trivial jealousies and he owns a chain of Home Depot-like stores (in which his FIL is trying to take a 20% tithe). He also has a gang of kids, one of which I think that one of Paxton’s wife has a crush on and another is the really dumb chick from “Mean Girls” (so that’s not too bad). Oh yeah, George Costanza’s mother-in-law plays Paxton’s whacked-out mom, so that’s funny just to see her.

There’s a lot of shit going on and I think the first couple of episodes were done at a frantic pace because they had to set the groundwork for the upcoming season. Since then, it has slowed down a bit and the plots are beginning to unfold at a more leisurely pace. And since that has occurred, it has been a more enjoyable show to follow. Though there aren’t a lot of characters I’m rooting for, or that I particularly like, I’m going to continue to watch.

The only show that I watch on Mondays, is by far one of the best show on television right now. “24”. If you aren’t watching this show, then you are missing out big time on what has proven to be a weekly mini-movie. I was reading some comments on the show and someone hit the nail right on the head when they wrote that we (as an audience) sometimes take the effects for granted week in and week out. For example, last week an entire gas plant exploded. When was the last you saw that on television? That’s like the last scene of a summer block buster. And on “24” it was 15th hour.

Yes, the twists can be cheesy and there are some plot holes that you can drive a Mack truck through, but it’s an enjoyable show made even more so by the commitment of the actors. While easy to camp up and make kitschy, each actor plays their role with such sincerity and believability, that as a viewer, you have to take it seriously.

And Kiefer Sutherland is Jack Bauer for now until the day he dies, that’s all there is to it. And Mary Lynn Rajskub is going to be Chloe, Louis Lombardi is going to be Edgar and Dennis Haybert has shed his Pedro Serano character from “Major Leagues” and will always be the greatest President of all time, David Palmer.

Each week I am on the edge of my seat wondering what the hell is going to happen next and each week, the show delivers. Eventually, it’s going to wane … I know that, but for now, it’s a hell of a ride. And there are plans to release a “24” movie in 2008. Maybe I’ll start waiting in line now.

Urine Love

Just like the RATT song, and you read that right, buck-o, I made a pun on a RATT song. The one good thing about this title is that maybe more people will immediately go to the comic strip site when they start Googling things like “Water Sports” or “Yellow Punishment”. As I was telling my good buddy Ryan the other day, I need more degenerates on this site.

Anyway, this week’s strip is actually a pet peeve of mine. Not to go Jerry Seinfeld on you, but what’s the deal with these people. Women, you’re lucky, you never have to worry about this type of crap. You go into your little stalls and you do your business in peace. Men have to worry about these asswipes that get all Chatty Charlie on you the minute you pull out the L’il General.

Why? Why are you bothering me with the most mundane, boring conversations while I’m trying to pee. And look at the verb in the last sentence, trying. Sure, after about six or seven beers, the flood gates are open, but that’s not always happening. And the diatribes against Johnny Damon, ain’t making it any easier.

If you are new to the Blog and have zero clue what I’m talking about, you can check out my comic strip here: www.room19comics.com

As far as the general art of this week’s strip, I think that it came out pretty good. In the first panel, I had a bit of a problem with Eddie’s perspective. I think that I made the lower part of his body a little big for the top portion. But other than that, I think that it works. The weird thing is, Kurt usually is the easiest character for me to draw, but this week it took me a few times per figure to get him the way that I wanted. I have no idea why, maybe it was because I haven’t drawn him in a few weeks.

Like the last comic with Eddie and the gang, the second panel is a dream sequence … or in this case a flashback. I had a bit more detail in the background of this panel, but it didn’t look right for the feel of this strip. Other than the hippo on Kurt’s shirt, which was inspired by Hungry, Hungry Hippos. I’m sure you can figure out just about everything else in the strip.

Sorry for the short entry, but I really feel like shit right now. If I have time on Friday, I’ll post a new entry.

Invite Me to a Party for Minty-Fresh Breath

Yes. This week’s cartoon is a true story. If you know me at all, you’re probably aware that I’m a passive guy and I try not to let things bug me too much. However, if I get angry enough or feel that I’ve been wronged in some way, and I feel motivated (big part of the equation), I do a pretty good job of getting people back.

Anyhow, by the time I was midway through my sophomore year in college, I was pretty much done with the whole fraternity scene. For the most part, the dudes that joined these things were complete dorks and while the parties were ok, there was always an underlying tension between the guys in the frat and the guys who weren’t in the fraternity. Full disclosure, I can’t really blame them. I used to hate it when we’d have bashes and random dudes would show up unannounced drink our beers and go for our women.

The difference is, we never used to advertise our fiestas, while these clowns usually did. In order to get a majority of the guys out of their house, they would often call the cops on themselves and the police would send everyone home. A half hour later, a select group would come back (mostly chicks) and they would spend the rest of the night drinking. Oh yeah, I forgot the most important thing, we had to pay to get in the place. So essentially, we were paying $10 a cup for three beers and an hour’s worth of “fun”.

Not all of the fraternities did that, but there was one that pulled this trick on a regular basis. After about three straight weeks, I got fed up and pulled the trick that I depicted in my strip.

Want to see the strip? Check it out here at: www.room19comics.com

Ninety nine times out of one hundred, I wouldn’t have the balls to pull this off, but I was a bit tipsy, but not too wasted, so I tried it. I’m not even sure where I got the idea from, maybe from the urban legend about the honeymoon couple who went away and had all of their shit stolen except their toothbrush and their cameras. After the vacation they got their pictures developed and found that the thieves had shoved the toothbrushes up their asses and took pictures of it. I wasn’t about to shove a tooth brush up the butt, but I could do the next best thing.

I’ve never checked a locked door so much in my life. You’ve been to enough parties to know that a bathroom door is never safe, no matter if it’s locked or not. With one eye on the toilet and another glued to the entrance, I grabbed the brushes off of the sink and left them under my yellow stream. After I was done pissing, I dunked both brushes in the toilet for good measure and actually scrubbed a bit of the porcelain.

When I left the bathroom, I made sure to cover my tracks and put the brushes back exactly where they were when I originally found them. One of the brothers was pissed that I was still in the house (he probably forgot that I asked to take a leak) and told me to get lost. I just smiled and told him thanks for letting me come to your party.

Of all of the things that I’ve ever done, this was the meanest and most satisfying. As Eddie Haskell once said, “Nothing is mean if it’s funny enough” and laughed the entire way back to school. My friends were asking me what was so funny and I managed to tell them and I think that they thought it was funny too, but probably not as much as I did.

There aren’t many opportunities in life where you get to be a dick and be proud of it. Did I overreact? Shit yeah. In the long run, it was their party, they could invite whom they wanted and can kick out who they don’t want there. But at the time, I thought that a huge injustice had been foisted upon me and my brethren and wanted to strike back at the yoke of opposition. Did it work? Who knows, but all I know is that it made me feel better.

BTW the letters on the frat guy's chest isn't from a real fraternity at Merrimack College. They actually stand for DIK or dick, get it? It's a shout out to "Can't Hardly Wait" and is the frat that Jerry O'Connell belongs to. So, I am very unoriginal.

Yesterday wasn’t the best day at this address, it wasn’t one gigantic thing that made it crappy, but a bunch of stuff that combined together made up for a less-than-fun 24 hours. BTW, if you don’t want to read a bunch of random bitching then you can skip this part of the Blog. It’s just a lot of wah-wah-wahing and “feel bad for me” bullshit.

It all started back on January 8 of this year, Aly and I were driving down Route 9 to see about some furniture when a cop in Wellesley pulled me over. He was standing in front of the fire station on Route 9 and I was stopped at a red light. I knew exactly why he did so, I had an inspection sticker that expired at the end of December and he was being a ball-buster.

I figured I’d get a $25 fine, or at best a warning, but he hit me with a $50 citation. I was beyond bullshit, and the guy was a real fucking dick about it too. I decided that I’d fight the ticket and maybe see if I could get the fine knocked down or something. Well, yesterday was my day in court. I had to be in Dedham at 10:30 for a hearing in front of a judge, I wish I could remember the guy’s name because he was a dick too.

He gave me a half a minute to explain my side of the story, which I did. Then he said that I have a “serious” problem with inspection stickers and I asked what he was talking about. He pointed to a ticket I got in 2000 and a warning that I received in 2004. I have no idea what the 2000 one was for, but the 2004 one was one in which I was in Aly’s car. It happened in Brookline and like I said, I was given a warning.

The judge said, “They may go easy on you in Brookline, but not here. Fine stands.” Didn’t even give me a chance to explain. I was in and out of there in less than two minutes. Thanks, dickhead. Really. The reason why Brookline gives out warnings is because they actually have things that go on in their city. The only thing that Wellesley cops do is give out tickets and slam black guys to the ground as a way of making sure that they aren’t bank robbers.

If you have no idea what I’m talking about do a Google search for former Celtics star Dee Brown and Wellesley. Great little town you have there. Big fuck you to them.

The other sucky thing that happened yesterday is while I was paying my bills in the morning I happen to notice that the restaurant we went to for Roy’s birthday on Saturday, Pane E Vino in Providence, charged me $300 for the dinner. The meal did cost $300, but I only put $120 on my card and the remainder was paid in cash.

I called the restaurant, but it wasn’t open yet, so the manager called me in the afternoon. She apologized for the mix-up, but said there was nothing that she could do. I was like, “What do you mean?” She told me that that is just the way things go in the restaurant biz and that I should see an adjustment in two to five days. I said, “What?”

She then said that the waitress messed up. Then she said I only put down $249, which was completely wrong. Just totally wrong. Then she came up with another excuse, this literally all happened within two minutes. Personally, I think that she was just throwing excuses at me and hoping that I’d let her off the hook. Unfortunately, $180 is $180 and I don’t have the extra scratch to throw around.

I told her that if I didn’t see a change on my statement by Wednesday, I’m disputing the bill. This pissed her off a bit, but you know what who cares? I have the customer receipt and it says $120 on the sheet. I have no idea where our waitress got $300 from, especially after there were nine $20 bills in the little after-dinner binder they give you. Even if she did completely fuck up, how come I was given a bill for $120? If she wasn’t trying to screw us, wouldn’t common sense tell you that you were not going to get a $180 tip on a $300 meal?

Seriously? What the fuck is wrong with people now a days? Everyone is always looking to pull a fast one and if you call them on it, they get pissed. Now add this with the new microwave we bought on Saturday that when I pulled it out of the box on Sunday, it looked as if someone hit the thing with a sledge hammer, me losing my student ID and getting the proofs back from our wedding album (the photographer, who has been moving about on this as fast a snail on valium, completely decided to do the opposite of what we are paying him to do.) and yesterday pretty much fucking blew.

Oh yeah, “Arrested Development” is officially cancelled. That was the cherry on top of the shit sundae that was March 27, 2006. RIP AD

Popping Off About Television

Here's a special edition of the Pop Culture report. Why is it a special edition, because I'm doing it on a Sunday. For the next two weeks, I'm going to write a bit about the prime time shows that I watch religiously. And since, we're talking about religion, let's start on Sunday nights.

Like most people my age, I begin the TV week with an old-standby, the Simpsons. Now in it's 17th season, the Simpsons have been on television since 1989. Nineteen fucking eighty-nine. Think about that for a second. There are a generation of kids in high school who have never known a time where new episodes of the Simpsons weren't on. I was a sophomore at Amesbury High School in 1989. I couldn't drive a car, I never had a sip of booze, sex? that was something that adults had. So much shit has happened to every person since 1989.

But the one consistent is that the Simpsons keep rolling on and on and on and on. Year in and year out, they keep producing episodes. Are they still the best show on television? No, if you do something for 17 years, you're going to ebb and flow. That's just the way things go. For a fan to even try and hold them to the seasons 3-8 is completely insane. That was pinnacle television. The satire was sharp, the plots were both plausible and interesting, the character development was second to none.

Now, well, things are a bit slower. They aren't as bad as it used to be and I think that, aside from the beaten to death episodes where Homer takes a different job or Homer and Marge's marriage is in trouble, the show is experiencing a renaissance. The last two weeks, the writing has been top notch and things aren't happening just to happen. What does that mean? Well, the writers aren't just throwing shit against the wall and hoping that it will stick. It seems that each episode is more thought out as to how it will affect the Simpsons lore.

Tonight's episode, the BBC Office creator, Ricky Gervais has crafted an episode, so it should be a sarcastically biting episode. This is one that I am really looking forward to.

At 8:30, I watch nothing. FOX has the dreadful, "The War at Home" which is like a dumbed-down version of "Married ... With Children". And while I used to really enjoy MWC, it wasn't exactly the Algonquin Round Table. Usually I just flip around for the half hour or watch part of a game. Beginning next week, Sunday Night Baseball is back, so that will be cool ... although that means Joe Morgan also comes back.

Why can't there be Death Cage matches between announcers. Would anyone be pissed if Joe Morgan and Tim McCarver fought to the death? How would anyone lose in that?

Anyway, at 9:00 I watch "The Sopranos". This is the first season that I've actually watched the show, which begs the question, "What rock have you been hiding under?" Actually, I watched the first two episodes when it first came on, thought that no one would ever watch the series (because it was so slow) and dropped it. Of course, it completely blows up and I'm on the outside looking in as Soprano mania runs wild.

Aly is a die-hard though and has gotten me into it and I have to say, it is a decent show. Very well written and as one blogger put it this week, "(the show) is more about words than about guns." Last week's episode seemed to plod along, but there was definitely a few layers to the hour that you don't get in most television shows. And the weird thing was, even though I am not familiar with the intracies of the characters, I was thinking about the episode all week. Just trying to figure out what Tony's dream meant, whether any of his guys are going to make a power play, what's going to happen with Uncle Junior.

There aren't many shows on television where you can do that.

And the last show I watch on Sundays, and it's because it's usually TiVoed is "The Family Guy". I have to admit, this show grew on me. A lot of people, namely most of "the Simpsons", "Ren and Stimpy" and "South Park" writers, hate this show because they feel it's lazy television. And to be honest, they're correct. Creator Seth MacFarlane seems to create a rudimentary plot around short sequences that usually have nothing to do with the story. The other shows actually construct plots that have a traditional beginning, middle and end.

In other words, you can walk into a Family Guy episode not seeing the first 10 minutes and being ok with the last 20. Not so on the other shows listed above. Does that make for lazy writing? I'm not sure. But it makes it easier. If you have 15 good ideas that don't need to have a common thread, that's a bit less tougher than having the same 15 good ideas and trying to weave them through a plot and making each of those ideas relevant to the story at hand.

Keeping on this idea, I've noticed that a majority of people, when talking about FG cite scenes as their favorites. On other shows, it's usuaally the episode.

That being said, it's still a pretty damn funny show no matter how they write or produce the show. Yes, it's different, but that doesn't necessarily make it bad. Peter is an obvious copy of Homer Simpson, except much dumber, but in my view he's not the star of the show. Most shows are based around him, but the rest of his family, notably Stewie and Bryan have the better lines and better subplots. Not coincidentally, they are the most fleshed out and strongest characters.

One note, it has been cancelled twice, hopefully FOX won't make that mistake again.

Presenting the STARfish of the show … Aquaman!

We interrupt the normal flow of 19 Thoughts to bring you a very important message from our exiled King of the Deep, Aquaman. BTW, if you’re looking for the article about this week’s strip, it’s under this one and if you’re looking for the pop culture article, it won’t be up until Sunday.

For fuck’s sake, it’s been a long-ass time since I last spoke to all y’all, but the twerp that runs this site has kept me on a very short leash. Each week, I write out a brand new Blog entry and each week that jerkoff doesn’t put it on his precious site. Something about “too many curses” and “no sentence or paragraph or entry structure”.

Whatever.

What I have to tell you guys today is way more important than any beef I have with a mouthbreather like Magrane. I was just “surfing” (get it?) the Internet the other day and I “found” a tidbit of information that surprised me and will shock the shit out of your bowels. Guess who the WB (or CW or whatever they’re calling it these days) is making a TV show about?

ME! That’s right. The King of the Deep is about to become the King of the Silver Screen.

You can check out the announcement in Variety right here:

ME! ON TV!

I am so pumped up, I can hardly breathe, which is good because I’m underwater as I type this. But, can you believe it? I’m going to be a TV star. I wonder if they want me to do all of the acting? I can act you know as I’ve had at least three different cartoons on television already.

And I do a perfect James Cagney … mostly because I call everyone a “Mug”, just like Cagney. Check it out, “Yeah … yeah. See hear you mugs, I’m in charge of this city now. Yeah. Yeah.” Perfect. Just perfect.

I wonder if they contacted my agent? They had to have, right? I mean, I checked when they wrote this story and it was in November of last year. So the phone should be ringing off da hook (that’s how they talk in California, which is where Hollywood is). Check out this part of the article:

“As with "Smallville," their successful reinvention of the "Superman" saga, producers Al Gough and Miles Millar plan to focus on character rather than cheese. (The show) won't be called "Aquaman" -- indeed, the "A" word won't even be mentioned -- and Curry "won't be talking to fish or riding a seahorse," Gough said.”

For all you that don’t know, Arthur Curry is my surface name, Aquaman is my real name. I wonder what they’re talking about the “A” word. I bet it means assface or asshole or something. I say those words a lot, but if I’m going to be on TV, I won’t be able to. Standards and practices (not to mention the FCC) is something that I have to get used to!

And I’m glad that they’re going to focus on characters and not cheese. Maybe I can see if Aqualad and Tusky, my trusty walrus buddy, will be able to join the show. As much shit as I give these two clowns, they could use some extra cash. As long as they realize that I’m the show, not them. Maybe I can see if they can hangout in the background. That seems like a cool thing to do.

The one thing I don’t like is the not riding of seahorses or talking to fish. For one thing, fish are about the smartest creatures in the world. You know why? Because they’re always in school! Ha! I hope they let me do some jokes on the show like that. I am really fucking funny, especially when I’m drinking. Drunk or sober though, I bet that I’ll get some awesome bad guys to fight. Like tuna poachers or Black Manta or dudes that swim less than an hour after eating.

This is going to be the tits. Speaking of which, can you imagine all of the tail I’ll pull? Dude, when the Flash had his own shitty show on CBS in the early 90s, he used to get a ton of the poon. I mean, he was swimming in it, but the problem is he’s not called the Flash because he can run fast. There was a line of chicks a mile long who were disappointed in Wally West.

Good thing that the Big A knows how to treat the ladies. I know what you’re thinking, “Aquaman, you’re already super hot looking and have a wife, what’s up with her?” First off, thanks for thinking of that and second, Mera is just going to have to understand that whatever happens in Hollywood is done to further my career. You wouldn’t believe how many chicks there are out there and I figure if I nail enough of them, at least one of them has to be a head of a studio somewhere.

The Big Picture, amigos, keep your eyes on the prize.

And don’t worry true-believers, I am going to be bringing you all with me on this little adventure? How? I will send a shout out in secret code every week to this little forum. Maybe I’ll talk about the 19 girls that I had sex with or the 19 times that I won the ultimate jackpot in Vegas. Who knows, but when you hear the number 19, remember, I’m thinking of you.

Ok, I gotta go, I’ll have my people call your people (another Hollywoodism) and hopefully I can come back to this place and write a bit more. Until then, keep your feet on the ground and keep reaching for the STARS, fish that is!

Ooooooh Dream (Sequence) Weaver …

Who says that I don’t go all out for my readers? Saturday, as I was plotting out this week’s strip the second panel was a typical, boring panel of Layne explaining to Eddie about his dream. I looked at it, thought that it was rubbish and erased the entire thing and replaced it with a first at Room 19 Comics … a dream sequence.

You can tell that it’s a dream sequence by the funky outline where the box should be and also the little bubbles that are in the corners. I thought that if anyone deserved a dream sequence of big breasted women, it’s you … the dear reader of Room 19 Comics. So there you go, don’t say that I never gave you anything.

You want to see cartoons of big boobed woman? Check it out here, my friend at:
www.room19comics.com

This strip actually is grounded in something that happened to me last week. If you’re a regular reader of my Blog (and shame on you if you’re not, especially considering that I’m updating it a guaranteed TWICE every week) you would know that last week I was a traveling man. Monday I was in DC and Wednesday I was in New York City. For some reason, I had a rotten night of sleep on Wednesday night, but I had some very lucid dreams.

One of which was about how I drew the greatest comic strip that has ever been drawn. In my dream it propelled me to fame and fortune and countless people were telling me how great it is. For some reason, I realized that this was a dream (maybe it’s because of all of the wealth that I got from a web comic), but I told myself to write down the strip as soon as I woke up, so I wouldn’t forget. The problem was that I woke up at 4:00 am and I had no idea where the pen and pad was. I convinced myself that I’d remember and fell back to sleep.

Problem was, when I woke up, the only thing that I remembered was a general description of the dream, but not the specifics. I spent a good 15 or 20 minutes in bed trying valiantly to remember the dream, but it wouldn’t come back to me. Eventually, I gave up and took a shower, but since then every once in a while I’ll try to recall it. I think I’m SOL on this one though.

So instead of the greatest comic strip ever, you get a story about forgetting the greatest pick up line ever. That sort of evens out, eh? And you get to see your old buddy Layne, who has been sort of MIA in the past few months. Like I say every time I draw him, I love this character. To me, he’s better than Eddie and Kurt, because he’s very inhibited and does what he feels. I feel free when I write for him, because he’s a goof ball, but a good-natured one.

That being said, I can see why Eddie gets pissed at him in the last panel. Aside from my riveting yarn that I just spun about my dream, don’t you hate it when people tell you about their dreams? Most of the time they don’t make sense and you have no idea whether their motivations for telling you this story is to just tell you or they want you to analyze their nighttime insanities. When you do put on your Freudian hat, more likely than not, they begin to get pissed; “No. Just because I had a dream where I took a leak on my mother, does not mean that I have issues with her … I just had to pee really bad, can’t you see that?”

Or if you say nothing, they say, “Well, what do you think?” and you’re back to that last paragraph. I guess if you’re going to tell someone about a dream you had, you better have a point, which is what Eddie thought that Layne had. If you don’t, be prepared for a bitter dis.

I’m running out of old-school logos that have resonated with me, so I had to use that lame Cleveland Indian one from the 70s. You remember those uniforms, they were freaking terrible. Check it out here:



Boog Powell said that he felt like a giant blood clot in them. So, today I am honoring those shitty Indians teams of the 70s. You may have had a couple of stars; Frank Robinson, Boog Powell, a young Dennis Eckersley and Rick Manning, but your uniforms sucked and so didn’t most of your teams.

Speaking of sucking, I’m not too wild about Layne’s final statement. I mean it’s ok, and I wanted to take the sting out of Eddie’s insult, mostly because I don’t want to portray him as a dick, but Layne sort of sounds like a wimp here. That’s not what I wanted. Next time I’ll know to leave well enough alone.

BTW, if you have any ideas on what old-school logos I should use next, email me at byronm19@yahoo.com

The one wise ass remark I liked was Eddie’s calling Layne, Martin Luther. Since a lot of people still don’t know the characters’ names, I made sure that the chicks were calling him Layne in the next panel. Hopefully, people won’t be confused.

BTW, the Sox traded Bronson Arroyo to the Reds for Wily Mo Pena. I think that this is a terrific deal for a number of reasons, one the guy is a young stud (he’s 24) and he hits absolute bombs. According to some numbers that I’ve looked up in his last 650 at bats, he has 45 dingers. In the same number of abs, Manny has 45 homers and Ortiz has 47. I’m not saying that he’s going to be the next Manny Ortiz, but a right handed slugger coming into his prime—in Fenway—is not the worst thing in the world.

But this being Boston, the talk radio shows are already in a lather about losing Arroyo. Listen, I like Arroyo, he was one of the 24, yadda, yadda, yadda. But the fact is, he’s no more than a number three guy at the very best and this year he was going to be a swing man. He’s also older than most people think (he’s 29) and despite Curt Schilling telling everyone that he has “nuts the size of Saturn”, I think we’ve seen the absolute best of him.

The old axiom is that you never trade pitching for hitting, but in this case, this was a no-brainer. The Sox have gotten pretty lucky this winter (getting Loretta for Mirabelli and now Pena for Arroyo), but like that sage of the dugout Jimy Williams was so fond of saying, “We have a problem in Boston.” Not this time though, we actually have a solution.

Here’s hoping that Tito uses Pena right and remember this day all you Trot Nixon fans, as this could be the day that your boy got his ticket out of town punched. Nixon is going to be a free agent at the end of the year and this pretty much clinches it that he isn’t coming back.

Snap, Crackle, Pop ... Culture

Wednesday afternoon, I was flying to New York City on JetBlue and was watching a great “Leave it to Beaver” episode on TVLand. It was one of my all-time favorite episodes where Wally dates a chick who dropped out of school, lies to Ward and June, smokes, drinks beer ... at beer joints, and just wants to make out all the time. At first Wally is too dumb to notice that she is a tramp, but after she instructs him to pull his car over so she can stick her tongue down his throat (causing them to miss a movie) and takes him to Hank’s (the only bar AND grill in Mayfield) and orders him a couple of brews, he figures out that Marlene ain’t the right girl for him.

She also told him to go home, which cemented it in Wally’s dense dome.

Anyhow, as I was 18,000 feet above Connecticut or Rhode Island or where ever the hell I was, it occurred to me that when this episode of LTB was written, I would say that less than half of the American people had gone on a plane and there was no color television. Now, plane travel is about as common as jumping on a bus and there is even small color TVs in the back of all the headrests.

Ok, so with more than 40 years of technology you are going to see a large jump in stuff that never were imagined to things that are commonplace, that’s a given. But another thing that struck me was the number of channels that Jet Blue offered, 37. When I was younger and we first got cable, 36 was the maximum amount of channels that we could get. We had this gigantic box connected to the television and it had 12 buttons across and a switch that had three different settings.

I wish that I could find a picture of it, but Google isn’t being much of a help, so I’ll have to explain it. It was about 10 inches in length, brown and black, with about a seven foot wire that connected to the television. On the top row of channels it was numbered 2-13, the middle 14-25 and the bottom was 26-37 and you had to actually press down on the channel number to watch the show. The only good thing about this thing was, if someone had the box and you wanted it you can just tug on the wire real quick ... and you’re in control. It was also fun to hit my brother over the head with the thing.

In any event, that was the apex of technology 20 years ago and stayed that way (at least in my house) until about 1988 or so. Now you get more channels in the air. What’s my point? Shit changes pretty fucking quick, my man ... if you aren’t with it, you’re going to end up being like Wally. Stuck in a beer joint with some floozy as she makes time with another dude, wondering how the hell you got stuck in this mess anyway.

Speaking of changes, on the way home from NYC, VH1 had their retrospective on hip hop and I was watching that. They broke it up into hour-long pieces on the evolution of the medium from New York B-boys to what it is now. I caught some of the pieces on the mid 80s to the early 90s, and it was pretty damn dope. The one thing that caught my eye was Ice Cube.

Fifteen years ago, there wasn’t a bigger, tougher dude than this guy. From his constant scowl, to his gheri curl to his all-black garb, this was one motherfucker that you didn’t want to meet on a bad day. The guy wrote “Fuck the Police” and “Straight Outta Compton” for God’s sake. Even if Nelson George is right, and he probably is, that early gangsta rap was wrestling, Ice Cube was an intimidating person.

Now? This guy is starring in family comedies like, “Are We There Yet?” and is going to be Mr. Kotter in the movie version of “Welcome Back Kotter”. Seriously. What the hell is up with that? When did the baddest guy on the planet turn into the softest guy? Was he always like this? As a kid, NWA was a tape that you could pop in and scare the shit out of your parents, now I find out that all of the rhymes were written by a third-rate Bill Cosby?

This got me thinking, we accept Ice Cube’s transformation from pissed-off, angry black man to hard on the outside, soft on the inside movie star without question. It actually happens a lot with tough guys, see Schwarzenegger in “Kindergarten Cop”, Stallone in a variety of movies, Vin Diesel in “The Pacifier”, however it never goes the other way. An example, when Hammer remade himself into the Funky Headhunter, everyone laughed.

I think this says something about our selves. What exactly that is, I have no idea … maybe it has something to do with our world view that the only “real” person is a “hard” person. Though I would say that first impressions do count for a lot, if you show up tough, you’re going to be pegged as a tough guy, but there’s always room for redemption. However if you show up nice and friendly, there’s no going back.

Ok. I can’t write anymore, because I think I’m starting to get a cold. Until next week.

A Good Rant Stopped

Yup, this comic could’ve been about me during the last 10 or 15 years. If it wasn’t “Arrested Development” then it was “Undeclared” or “Action” or “Get A Life” or “The Family Guy” (which they brought back). Basically, I have a love/hate relationship with FOX. They put up a show that I love, do a crappy job promoting it, move it around the schedule and then premempt it and then they cancel it. That’s the part I hate.

Hey tough guy, you’re going after FOX? This is something I have to see. Check it out here: www.room19comics.com

Today’s Blog is coming to you directly from our nation’s capital, Washington DC. I’m here on a business trip for a Disaster Recovery seminar. On Wednesday, I’m going to be in New York City. The city so nice, they named it twice. The other name is Manhattan. Ok, I swiped that joke, word for word from “The Office”.

Anyhow, back to the strip, I can’t remember if I wrote about this last week, but I’m getting to the point where I’m running low on Eddie Verde stories and I’m going to have to make a decision as to whether to keep going with them or turn the strip into a bunch of Random Memories.

Like I said in the first paragraph, this easily could’ve been an RM with me waxing about shows that were on FOX, but I decided to make it an Eddie because I felt that I had just done an RM and didn’t want to do another one. I’m not sure. The good thing is that for the next few days, I’m going to be on my own, so hopefully, I’ll be able to come up with some new ideas.

I have a ton of Random Memories, but I just have to come up with some more Eddie ones. By the way, Kurt’s shirt is in memoriam of one of the greatest characters to ever grace the small screen, Edgar from “24”. He was your typical IT guy; slovenly, great with computers, crappy with real life social skills, sort of an every-man with a gigantic gut. In last week’s episode they killed him and people are as upset is if he really died.

He and Kirby Puckett died 24 hours apart and I think some are more sad that the fictional character passed away.

I tried a couple of things differently with this week’s strip. For one thing I did the silhouette in the second panel. And yes, I purposely made Eddie look like Bart Simpson, with the whole FOX thing. I think that that panel came out pretty well.

The third panel is sort of flat to me, sure Kurt is saying a lot and is pretty much the meat of the strip, but there’s not a lot of action going on. And the way that he is in the right hand side of the panel with not much going on in the left only exacerbates that point. I’ve been trying to do the lettering before I draw the characters and while the words are more legible, I think that I’m losing something in the way the action is laid out.

There has to be some sort of happy medium.

This weekend, I’m going to go on a couple of comic message boards and really try to get my strip noticed. I really would like a lot of feedback, but I haven’t really been getting it from the usual places that I link the strip to.

Of course, most of those places are sports sites, but still cartoonists like sports too. Hopefully something will shake out. Even if a bunch of people told me my strip sucks, it’s better than not hearing anything. It’s like my friend Barry said, “The enemy of the artist is silence.” I’d rather have my work hated instead of ignored … that means that they at least noticed it.

The plane ride into DC sucked today, BTW. I was bumped an hour early, which was good, but after that everything went down hill; the plane was cramped and hot, the pilot couldn’t fly the thing worth a shit, the drinks were warm, the snack was terrible and some guy in front of me was ripping ass. If my ears popped, all five of my senses would’ve been punished. Just a rotten flight from start to finish, hopefully tomorrow’s will be better.

Ok. I’m getting tired. Maybe I’ll try writing a bit on Wednesday, but for now I’m going to bed.

The Poop on Pop Culture

Like I said on Wednesday, I’m going to try and make this a weekly feature, showing up on Friday nights or Saturday mornings. Basically it’s going to be a quick hit, Larry King-like thoughts column where I write about anything that pops into my gulliver. Hopefully, I’ll be less incoherent than King, but part of the fun of Larry King is his insanity.

With American Idol on Thursday nights against Survivor, I’m probably one of the only people watching this season of the CBS show. And, while they are trying their damnedest to mix things up, this is a pretty flat cast. Last night, they voted out the astronaut. Oh crap, I forgot to put a spoiler warning in front of that, but no matter … it was really anticlimactic.

Aside from the astronaut and the fighter pilot on the losing team, the only other interesting cast member is Shane and that’s because he is completely and totally bat-shit insane. Courtney is a complete bitch, bordering on being a psychopath and then there’s the old guy who does karate and makes rock gardens on the beach. That’s about it.

Everyone else is interchangeable and this might go down as the most boring season ever. Though in three weeks (the show is being preempted by March Madness for two weeks) someone gets taken off the island on a stretcher. That might be interesting, but unless the person dies … I don’t think it’s going to matter much in terms of rememberability. Ok, that’s not even a word.

Speaking of shows that no one is watching, about a month ago FOX aired the last four episodes of “Arrested Development” and of course, they were awesome. The bad news was they ran them during the opening ceremonies of the Olympics, which meant they got zero ratings. However, the good news is that it looks like Showtime is picking up two years (26 episodes in all) of the show. You know what that means?

I’m getting Showtime. Definitely.

I know what you’re thinking, this is a pop culture entry, where is the stuff about the Oscars? I don’t really give a shit about awards shows so I didn’t watch the Oscars. Sorry about that. The thing is, I didn’t see any of the movies that were nominated either. I wanted to check out “Capote”, “Syriana”, “Crash” and “Good Night and Good Luck”, but I never got around to it.

In fact, my whole going to the movies thing has ground to a complete halt. The last movie that I saw in the theater was the “Fantastic Four”. How pathetic is that? Not that I saw FF, I’m a comic geek at heart and wanted to see it on the big screen, but I haven’t been to the movies since July. And it’s not like I have a kid or anything. Aly and I have just been too damn busy and we’re really turned off by the whole movie experience.

The last couple of times we’ve gone it’s the same thing; people loudly talking to each other, cell phones ringing, people eating three-course meals, yelling at the movie. It doesn’t matter if we go to a city theater or a suburb theater. It’s the same damn thing. People work so hard to get themselves to be a part of the movie, that they ruin the experience for everyone around them.

Am I going to pay $25 to be frustrated by a bunch of jackasses that weren’t given any attention as kids? I guess it depends on how badly I want to see a particular movie.

You’re not going to find a bigger “Leave it to Beaver” fan than me. God, I sound like a fucking dork in that last sentence, but there were a couple of things that bugged me about that show. For one thing, Ward and June claim that they don’t like Eddie at all. They think he’s a liar, a cheat and a sneak. Why do they permit Wally to hang out with him? Why doesn’t Ward grab him by the collar and say, “Listen Eddie, quit pulling that crap around here … I’m wise to you.”?

The most obvious answer is because it’s a television show, but putting that aside for a moment … Wally does everything his parents want, he’s almost like a robot. You mean to tell me that if they sit Wally down and explain to him that Eddie sucks, that he’d still hang out with him? Doubtful.

And that was the weird thing about Wally and Beaver. Left to their own devices, these kids constantly and consistently made the wrong decisions. Every single time. Can you imagine how frustrating that was to Ward? Forget the no sex thing for a second, Ward seemed like a pretty smart dude with a good grasp of how the world works. Wally and Beaver have zero clue, and had to be led by the hand to do the right thing.

That’s ok when you’re in grammar school, but Wally was a senior at Mayfield High by the end of the show and shouldn’t have had his father holding his hand on every decision the guy made. Maybe that’s why they kept Eddie around. Perhaps they thought that if Wally saw that Eddie completely screwed everything up by being sneaky and shifty, Wally would realize that he should act the opposite.

Of course, in the real world, Eddie is probably the head of a company like Enron right now, making eight figures and throwing parties that Caligula would find offensive. Wally is probably some hack accountant, playing by the letter of the law and struggling to get by on $35,000 a year.

I’ll be back next week with more stuff, hopefully it won’t be an admission that I haven’t watched any of the year’s Oscar nominated films, bits about two shows no one watches and an essay about a show that hasn’t had a new episode in 40 years.

Woman. Woe! Man!

Or is it, "Whoa. Man."?

Remember that pre-Austin Powers, post-Wayne’s World Michael Myers movie, “So I Married An Axe Murderer”? That’s where this week’s title comes from. If you think about it, Mike Myers (not the serial killer, or the Sox situational lefty from 2003 and 2004) was pretty much one movie away from taking up residence as the center square.

“Wayne’s World” was an unmitigated success but “Wayne’s World 2”, “SIMAAM” and “54” were absolute stinkfests. Until “The Spy Who Shagged Me” took the world by storm (thank you production tie-ins and DVDs--many people forget that AP was a minor cult hit in the theaters), Myers was looking down the barrel of a Dana Carvey-esque career.

Sure they both made us laugh together and on Saturday Night Live, but they seemed to suck when it came to box office success. So what the hell does have to do with anything, well there are two things: one, I am going to start writing a once-a-week pop culture entry, sort of like a Larry King type thing where I am a bit more lucid. I’ll post those either on Friday night or Saturday mornings.

Two, since I didn’t think that a lot of people would get the Def Leppard anagram for W.O.M.A.N. (worship our master’s every needs—seen on a friend’s DL concert t-shirt), I thought I’d go with the somewhat more recognizable quote from a decent, bordering on good, movie that came out in 1994. I actually saw this movie with my dad when he and I took a trip to Toronto that year.

In this week’s strip, we have Eddie lamenting about the same old stuff, chicks to his best bud, Kurt. BTW, you can check it out the lamentations here: www.room19comics.com

I’m a married man now, but I remember back in my swingin’ singles days the stupid plans I’d come up with to get some alone time with a woman. This was one of them, the old homework trick. Nothing like trying to outsmart a chick with the illusion of trying to smarten them up. Unless the girl likes you, it never works.

This strip sort of wrote itself, and actually it had to, as I’m down to the last of my original Room 19 Comics ideas. As the norm for most of the strips, Kurt is playing the straight man, sympathizing with his friend, but at the same time showing him that the trick does work, you just have to be smooth enough to make it work.

The one thing that I’m not particularly wild about in this strip is the last panel. I’m not too crazy about the perspective, where Kurt is shown in the foreground and Eddie in the back. It almost looks as if Eddie is more pissed at Kurt than the situation. That is not meant to be the case. Kurt’s way of rubbing it in wasn’t appreciated, but the ultimate “indignity” of being “forced” to study for five hours with no payoff is supposed to be the slight.

On further review, I probably should have had Eddie pissed off and saying something like, “I got an A- on the test though” as if he would rather flunk and get a piece of ass than get a good grade but nothing. Actually, most guys I knew were like that. Ahhh well, such is life.

This is the third strip where Eddie is wearing his weird-ass, Charlie Brown inspired shirt. Ever since I saw Urban Dance Squad’s “A Deeper Shade of Soul” and the DJ was wearing the Charlie Brown shirt, I’ve wanted one. That thing kicked ass, just a yellow shirt and a black wrap-around zig zag. Very simple, yet so iconic. That’s how you get into the subconscious of this country, you make something so simple that folks can identify with. Nobody likes complex, which is why “Arrested Development” isn’t on free television anymore.

Speaking of which, AD is heavily rumored to be going to Showtime for another 26 episodes (13 a year), which is excellent news. Now I just have to get Showtime, which is a small price to pay for the best show ever.

BTW, you have to check out the Winnipeg Jets shirt on Kurt. That was a fucking hockey team, from their collection of anonymous Europeans to the gigantic portrait of Queen Victoria, that is a hockey team that I miss. Tomas Steen, I salute you.

Also check out the newest links on the Blog roll, one is about a former lawyer who walked into work one day and quit so that he can hike the Appalachian Trial, the other is about a dude who likes music. The one thing in common, they love the Red Sox.